


and she closes her eyes

by reinventweather (theadmiral)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theadmiral/pseuds/reinventweather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: In summer, poison flowers flourish in this sweltering heat, tangling like blown litter in fences around the trailer parks and motel pool.</p><p>Pre-series River waiting for Simon to save her. Written for an Americana comment fic-a-thon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and she closes her eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thronebreaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thronebreaker/gifts).



She closes her eyes.

_the ground stretches beneath her feet, toes burning against the hot, dry ground.they're stuck, for a second, melting against the rock, before she picks up her left foot and then her right. not melting after all. or any more. or both._

An all-white room surrounds her; shiny, metal contraptions and soft beeps counting toward something lull her back into her not-quite-sleep (she never really sleeps anymore).

And she closes her eyes.

_she can feel the sun on her face, the sun of the earth that was. it's warm, just too warm, reddening her cheeks. she takes a step forward. there's nothing there, in front of her, nothing but the ground reaching for the sky in the distance. but she still takes another step and another before she's running toward the nothingness. the wind catches her hair and her skirt (a silly pink thing she'd never be caught wearing, but it feels familiar, or feels like it will be familiar, or something). sharp rocks catch on her feet but they don't hurt, not as much as her brain does when she's awake._

_and there, in the distance, is something, finally. she runs to meet it, and as she does, it grows taller and taller. it's not much to look at, just a plain chain-link fence, ten feet high. she stops, her face inches from the metal, and reaches out to touch it. it shocks her._

There are people in her room now, men and women in white coats with glasses and greying hair. And blue gloves, always the blue gloves. They've attached something to her fingertips, wires that are obviously meant to carry an electrical charge. She giggles. It's like the alien stories her brother used to tell her to scare her, back when she was a kid; stories of green men that probed your brain. These men aren't green though.

And she closes her eyes.

_and simon's there, on the other side of the fence. they look about the same age now, even though she knows he's a big doctor these days. but all she sees is his freckles and exasperated look at her. "c'mon, river, don't be boring. follow me." she tries. her fingers wind through the fence trying to touch him, feel the sunburn on his skin as well. but all she can feel is the constant stinging of the electrical fence. she wedges a foot between the links and pulls herself up. the charge is too strong, she can't hold on. she falls back to the ground._

"i want to show you something, you'll love it." he darts away, out of her sight. she cries out, trying to get him to come back and help her over this fence she can't climb by herself.

One of the women in the white lab coats tries to shush her, tries to be calming. "Don't worry, sweetie, we'll write a letter to Simon once we're done here. He'd love to hear from you." She swallows, the wires still sending shocks through her hands, and doesn't reply.

She will write him though. About this fence she can't climb by herself.

And she closes her eyes.


End file.
